lionelhutz

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Everything posted by lionelhutz

  1. Maybe this board; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128343&Tpk=GA-EP45-DQ6 1 - PCIe x16 1 - PCIe x8 2 - PCIe x4 1 - PCIe x1 FYI, I read somewhere that Norco is supposed to be coming out with a 24 drive case with SAS backplane. Could help with the cables between the SATA cards and the case. RPC-4124 is the number I read but don't know if it is correct. Peter
  2. This is interesting. Doesn't the ID have the SATA connectors with a shroud around it like most motherboards whereas the SM has an open SATA connector? I would have though the ID was better because of that. Peter
  3. Try the GA-EP45-DQ6 - you could fit 4 of these things. Peter
  4. For 6 drives this power supply would be fine; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008 The one you posted is a heck of a deal though. Peter
  5. Tom has LC and LL servers that use Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B 5 into 3 drive cages and the LI that uses the Icy Dock MB455SPF-B 5-into-3 drive cages. So, look them up and decide which one you like the best. They are both tray types so you have to bolt the drives to the tray. The Icy Dock looks like it has better SATA backplane connectors and reportedly has a removable/replaceable fan. But then, sure looks like you could change the fan on the Supermicro too. Other than this, the only other difference appears to be the case itself so you can look them up too and see which one you like the best. Another note on you needing 6T of space. unRAID will combine a commonly named directory on each drive into a single user share. You can write to this share and the data will go to one of the drives, depending on some settings. However, unRAID does not create one large 6T space. In other words, you can write a bunch of files to the 6T share but you can't write one big file. If you use 2T drives the largest possible theoretical file size is 2T even if you have 10 drives creating a 20T share. Peter
  6. So, it works? That is some interesting hardware to build a really cheap server for lots of drives. That parity check speed really is not show-stopping slow. It should have good access times when reading and writing under normal use. Peter
  7. It has been reported that it already does. Someone here is using SiL port multipliers. Peter
  8. OK, I'm going to post what should have been obvious. 720p picture size does not automatically mean any specific bit rate. You can find 720p movies that are very compressed and do not have the bit rate of a 720p blueray (if such a thing exists). Just saying, 720p does not mean any particular bitrate or file size. The lower bitrate smaller file sized movies/tv shows should be much easier to transcode that say a full bitrate 1080p blueray. Peter
  9. Yup that would make a cheap 20 port system if it works. I'm guessing you'll stick it and a Celeron together? I've just posted the Supermicro because it is known to work. You're looking for a board with 2 seperate PCI-X busses, which this board has. Put a single SAT2-MV8 into each buss and the speed will still be good. If that one works then $250 for a 20 port system is about as cheap as you'll ever find. Peter
  10. Looking at old technology which was about the cheapest for many ports, the Supermicro MBD-X7SBE motherboard is about $270. Add 8-port SATA2 PCI-X cards for $100 each and you can have 14 ports for $370 or 22 ports for about $470. The motherboard you listed is good with all the PCIe slots for the $190 price point. Add $100 4-port SATA2 PCIex4 cards you can have 12 ports for $290, 16 ports for $390 or 20 ports for $490. You want to avoid PCI controller boards. 8-port PCIe controller boards are still pretty pricy. So, it looks like a winner to me. Has anyone used it? Peter
  11. It sounds like it is not working. Tom must have a problem in the implimentation. Peter
  12. A lot of what you read here is either to support extra features or to troubleshoot problems. The basic operation is really pretty simple. After the initial boot you could be copying files within minutes. The basic operation just requires using the web page interface which is pretty simple. The hard part is the setup the BIOS and the creation of the flash drive. Peter
  13. I don't believe the basic unRAID can be controlled via a telnet window or via a connected keyboard and display. Well, it might be able to be, but it is not documented. The web browser is the way to control it. The file access is via the windows network, not via a web browser. Once you set-up the server you don't really need to access it via a web browser but the web browser is the only way to check the health of the system and should be looked at every now and then. Are these computers connected to the internet? If they don't have a path to the internet then they won't be able to connect even if they try. If they are connected, is this some type of installation put in place to avoid someone else using the internet? If so, the router you use can likely be setup to deny certain services or all internet connections for certain computers. Peter
  14. I've looked around for stuff like that a while back and I didn't see anything either. I don't think anyone makes them. The nicest I've seen is the CoolerMaster unit which also has a 120mm fan mounted but it's still just 4 drives. I think a 5 drive mount is a DIY item. Maybe you can start with some parts from a 4-drive. Peter
  15. 90Mbps should be possible with parity (and therefore with single disk failure protection) enabled. With the right hardware unRAID can support this level of write speed. I can keep my 100Mbps network connection saturated during a write transfer if the writing computer is not accessing it's hard drive for something else. 90MBps is not possible with parity enabled. This is getting to the speed point where you'd need onboard or PCIe hardware card based RAID5. A typical 7200rpm drive can handle maybe 70MBps to 100MBps sequencial write speed. Peter
  16. For the first case; Level 1 - Movies directory could split and be on multiple drives Level 2 - Action directory could split and be on multiple drives Level 3 - Transformers directory could split and be on multiple drives So, I think you'd want to use level 2 but you may want to use level 1 so the genre directories aren't spread over all the drives. If the genre directories are spread over all the drives then looking for an "Action" movie would spin up all the drives. But then, just looking at the "Movies" likely will likely spin up all the drives anyways. It also keeps things more organized for the future in case you end up doing some sorting of files later. Same with the Backup directory, you may want level 1 so that all the Apps stay on the same drive. You may also want to use includes or excludes to keep the Backup on a single drive anyways. Peter
  17. I've read about clicking most commonly with Seagate drives and it seems they often work OK with the clicking for a while and then just die very quickly. You could power each one up individually and see if one clicks because it's reported the clicking always happens even if not being read. Try one drive at a time and just booting to the BIOS. Even remove the flash if you want. I'm a little concerned about your need for a parity check after each shut down and the errors you posted. I don't think you're using the proper shutdown. You have to use the web interface and stop the array and then use the power down button that appears. I was seeing that with my 1T Seagate drives every now and then. I updated the firmware and haven't seen it again yet. Once again, it has been reported that the Seagate drives will momentarily hang at times with the 1.5T drives being the worst culprits because they would hang long enough to cause a RAID card to flag them as bad with the end result being either a degrade or loss of the array. I suspect this is unRAID recovering from this type of drive hang. Peter
  18. I didn't see it mentioned but you have to watch your split level if using the cache drive. If you have it set too deep then the existing data directory could stay on one drive but a new directory could be created on another drive for the movie file. Peter
  19. Here is a syslog from the ECS A740GM-M using 4 drives. Hardware; BE2360 processor 2 gig OCZ ram Corsair 400W power supply 2 x WD 500g 2 x Seagate 1T Peter
  20. Well then maybe you should get a SuperMicrso C2SEE, which is the board Tom (the unRAID creator) sells in the servers he builds. Peter
  21. I have an ECS A740GM-M and the network port works fine. Not sure what you're looking for but the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 motherboard with the same 740G chipset is working for many people here and is a cheap board for a 6 drive system and you can easily do 12 ports with all SATA on PCIe. Peter
  22. The parity drive does not contain any data. It can be changed or removed without affecting the data drives. You would basically do this. Copy the data from a 640G drive to the 1T. Put that 640G in the server and assign it as disk1 and format Copy the data back to this drive Repeat the above for the second 640G Install the 1T into the server and assign it to the parity The server does not require a parity drive to operate. You just lose the ability to recover from a drive failure without parity. Peter
  23. I didn't bother checking the serial numbers. I have 2 of the 1T SD15 Thailand drives so I downloaded the firmware and reflashed them. bjp999 - the OP was suggesting adding I suspect unmenu to look at the SMART data but the SMART data will not detect the bricking problem with the Seagate drives. Yes. it will show the firmware but it will not tell you that a drive is about to brick. Peter
  24. I could do my board to level 1 and maybe level 2 later this year since I only have 4 drives on it right now. Next time I do a parity check I'll try to remember to capture the syslog. The ECS A740GM-M seems to be a dying board so is there much interest? Maybe it's the 740G chip that's being phased out. Newegg doesn't carry the ECS one anymore. The AMD 740G/SB700 based boards are used by a bunch of people around here, with the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 being the most popular one but showing my board is OK doesn't qualify the other manufacturers ones. Peter
  25. OK, sounds like you have some good hardware ideas. I might suggest adding extra "slots" so you can plug-in more drives above the 16 drive array size. This can give you the chance to plug-in some non-array drives and copy data to/from them. You have 10 1T drives. If you use these you could add 5 more 2T drives and get to 20T to start. Then, later on you would replace the 1T drives one at a time to expand the array to 30T. Or, you could start another system and just begin with the 2T drives in that system. I'd seriously reconsider the Norco case and try to find an out of the way place in the house to stick it. It's very possible you will be expanding to 2 of these in a few years and if you get to that level you'll want them stored out of the way where you don't have to listen to them. Quiet and cooling 16 hard drives are not compatible goals. Starting with that case can get you 2 systems cheaper than the one. Peter